2017-11-19

Blogging hiatus

by Neil Godfrey

For anyone who might be curious, I have not yet died but have eased off regular blogging these past few weeks while I catch up on some serious reading. So much has been researched and published in the fields that interest me in recent years and even months, and there are still so many old foundational “classic” works I have not yet cracked open, that I have decided to try to bring myself a little more up to date before resuming posting about any of these topics. (Even just to refresh my memory of some works I read years ago!)

I’ve also been trying to re-think the future standards and directions of Vridar.

Pleasant sabbatical!
I wish you strength with Phil Norman’s book, it is not an easy read (in my view, too much raw ‘data’, not enough personal info).

Maybe this book about McCartney will inspire you to think about myth fomation around the Beatles. Norman earlier wrote a book about Lennon. Lennon was a nasty charachter, made fun on stage of the crippled, published characatures of the disabled, hit his friends, was cruel to his women, cheated on his wife, abandoned his son, insulted his manager (because he was gay), supported militant activists, and spent his last ten years leading the luxuary life in a 5th avenue appartment. And look at his mythical persona now! A saintly figure, symbol of peace, love, and and inspriation to everyone…..
How did this happen?

Does anyone really think John Lennon was “a saintly figure”? No-one that I know of. All of what you say is true, but it is interesting that you omitted other things that Philip Norman wrote about John in the same book. Maybe that’s how myths start.

I don’t think there is any mystery about the “myth” of John Lennon or how it came about. The whole story has been told over and over in the public record. Had I known John L personally in Liverpool or Hamburg I am sure I would have hated his guts. At the same time, I cannot help but reflect on the difference between Run for Your Life in 1965 and Jealous Guy in 1971. The music tells the story and explains the myth. And the personal openness inviting other flawed persons to identify with him.

I recently finished reading The Secret Life of Pronouns by James Pennebaker and was intrigued that JP’s analysis of the music and lyrics by each of McCartney and Lennon indicated that it was Paul who was the more adventurously creative and avante-garde one, not John, contrary to the popular myth — supporting what Norman writes in his bio of Paul M.

(On the mocking of the handicapped and giving nazi salutes to crowds and laughing (and worse) at homosexuals, those things were all part and parcel of the times. We all could (and did) get away with doing that sort of thing back then. Hell, people even thought it was cool to smoke in crowded rooms. Times have changed, thankfully.)

I misspoke. I have been working for some weeks now on the next post on Gmirkin’s book. The section that has intrigued me is the argument that Deuteronomy’s Taliban-ish type laws against anyone who introduces a foreign god or blasphemes and otherwise insults the deity or is involved in any way with witchcraft and sorcery are “borrowed” from Plato and Classical Greek trials and executions of philosophers, the impious, sorcerers, etc.

That argument has led me into several other works on classical Athens and Plato’s (and others’) writings, and into further articles discussing the conflict between philosophers (who were deemed impious more often than not) and the popular forces of religious intolerance. It appears the situation only began to be turned around after Plato’s output.

But even Plato, I have come to learn, was writing with hopes of ending the persecution of philosophers and his arguments for the immortality of the soul and claims to be pious towards the gods was a smokescreen, built up around parables or myths, to reassure the public and authorities of the morality and goodness of the philosophers. He himself, as a close examination of his writings shows, did not believe those things — except as metaphors or myths.

It’s been a long journey learning much more detail about Athenian customs, laws and strife between the “religious right” of their day and the philosophers.

(Before that, I was doing some background reading on Nazareth and preparing a series of posts based on the sources used and referenced by Rene Salm. Those notes are waiting for further information to arrive before I can post them. — another reason for delays in posts here.)

So that’s what is happening in the background while I am doing my reading.

What they say about Vridar

“Neil, for what it is worth it is obvious to me that if you had earlier in life tracked into a graduate program at one of the world’s leading research universities you would be one of the world’s formidable ones. You are doing essentially the same quality now (apart from the philology and languages) except mostly sticking to commenting on others’ work as informed comment/discussion.”

“I’d like to thank you for this very nice representation of what I was trying to show in the book. It’s always gratifying when a reader zeroes in on exactly those aspects I thought were most interesting and most central to my argument. Thank you for this careful and engaged reading of my work – much appreciated!”

“I want to say here that this site is so resourceful and highly on top of the most modern scholarship in the areas discussed here. . . I know of no other site which offers a wide range of topics related to careful critical analysis of historically and scripturally related issues.”

“Vridar is consistently thought-provoking, well-informed, and asking the right questions. There are intelligent, thoughtful comments and commenters regularly offering productive discussion. Books and publications are covered with a range of perspectives with attempts at fair and accurate representation of others’ arguments and content (where there are occasional and inevitable missteps on that I notice Neil making corrections and apologies where warranted, which wins points with me). Please carry on.”

“Thanks for this detailed interaction! I’ll try to offer something more substantial than “Thank you” in response at some point, but I didn’t want to wait . . . to express appreciation for your detailed interaction with what I’ve written!”

“Neil Godfrey and Tim Widowfield, who both write at Vridar . . . happen to be some of the most astute and well-read amateurs you can read on the internet on the subject of biblical historicity. I call them amateurs only for the reason that they don’t have, so far as I know, advanced degrees in the subject. But I have often been impressed with their grasp of logic and analysis of scholarship. I don’t always agree with them, but I respect their work.”